Hockey Bazinga

Jean S (writing at Climate Audit) spots the ultimate fib from Dr. Mann, and the placement of it could not be more hilarious.

No researchers in this field have ever, to our knowledge, “grafted the thermometer record onto” any reconstruction. It is somewhat disappointing to find this specious claim (which we usually find originating from industry-funded climate disinformation websites) appearing in this forum. Most proxy reconstructions end somewhere around 1980, for the reasons discussed above. Often, as in the comparisons we show on this site, the instrumental record (which extends to present) is shown along with the reconstructions, and clearly distinguished from them.

To be fair, I confess to be struggling to see the importance of this. Sure, the IR is not clearly defined in his book cover, unless you use the end of the yellow line as the end of the proxy record? in which case, the later data must be something other than proxy data?
I’ll knock Mann at every opportunity – because he deserves it – but this is petty semantics IMHO. We all know that the modern IR is flawed (after all the adjustments) and to my mind, the hockey stick, complete with its later IR graft, seems to confirm this? What is even better, is the fact that the last 16 years show no warming – and I’d bet if the proxy data was updated (independently of course!) the difference between the IR and the proxy data would be evident again! Has anyone done this? If proxy data used to go to 1980 – it should now go almost to 2000? It is important to know if the ‘recent’ warming is actually ‘confirmed’ in the proxy record. Of course, if it isn’t confirmed, it will be interesting to see which record the alarmists subsequently ‘diss’!!

Seriously, I want to know how Dr. Mann got his degree in the first place. How any reputable institution would hire him. And how he maintains a job given his clearly low level of intelligence. Would Penn St. keep him on if he were to engage in cannibalism just as long as grant money kept rolling in?

I have seen many high school kids who would know that tacking on thermometer data to tree ring data is blatant fraud, and they would never be so stupid as to bring that up in public if they had done so!

“No researchers in this field have ever, to our knowledge…. made total fools of themselves in public more than…. oh…. say twenty times or so. It is somewhat disappointing to find this specious claim (which we usually find originating from industry-funded climate disinformation websites) appearing in this forum….”

“Most proxy reconstructions end somewhere around 1980, for the reasons discussed above. Often, as in the comparisons we show on this site, the instrumental record (which extends to present) is shown along with the reconstructions, and clearly distinguished from them.”

Why does Mann continue to say this? In the famous “hiding the decline” case, the instrumental record is not distinguished from the reconstructions (something even Comedy Central picked up), the proxy record ended in 1962 not 1980, Briffa and other Team members had gathered the data that had for 36 years shown that the proxy record was declining, and Jones, Mann, and others chose not to show the fact that the proxy record contradicted the instrumental record. Mann exists on bluster alone.

To cut to the chase, what Mann, Jones, Briffa, and the TEAM should have done after finding that their proxy data had been in decline for 36 years is publish that fact. They should have presented their data which screams that the tree rings they were using as proxies had been shown to be unreliable. That was their duty as scientists; that is, their duty was to report on the lack of integrity in their data. Instead, Mann, Jones, Briffa, and others chose to hide the decline in the proxy data by attaching an instrumental record that was contradicted by their data. What purpose could that choice serve? No scientific purpose.

You do not have to believe me. What I have just reported is clear as a bell in the climategate 1 emails, in Montford’s books, and in Fred Pearce’s commentary on climategate published in January after the emails were released.

The way this all makes sense for me is in the attempt to keep separate discursive domains. The bookcover, as the whole book, is the in the domain of public advocacy or propaganda (scientist-as-hero), and this is considered entirely separate from the science discourse. Different rules apply in different domains. As the climategate emails showed, criticism is permitted within the science discourse, but not allowed to leak out — that is the difference between loyal opposition and treason. (And this is perfectly normal and common behaviour — as my Jewish friend used to always joke: hey, I am Jewish, so I’m allowed to be anti-semitic! He meant that in his Jewish circles it was perfectly ok for Jews to critics various aspects of semiticism.) It also seems quite OK to sex-up scientific findings as we have recently seen in Marcott et al. As for the blog-based scepticism, this is dealt with and contained withing the blogs as much as possible. There McIntyre cannot be named (or linked-to) for fear of promoting internally recognised concerns, even if this means plagarism. But the offensive on the blogs (RC etc) is extremely problematic because the civilian-directed propaganda is continually breached through to the science (within the context of the above proclaimation by Mann) . Fighting on the Blogs is like guerrilla warfare for a standing army.

To be fair, I confess to be struggling to see the importance of this. Sure, the IR is not clearly defined in his book cover, unless you use the end of the yellow line as the end of the proxy record? in which case, the later data must be something other than proxy data?

Amongst other things, to do say a forty-year time-series smoothing, (properly), you need twenty years of additional data beyond the end of the smoothing line. (It should be a centre-point moving average). The little upturn at the end of the smoothing line also contradicts the “divergence problem” and…. And…. Amongst other things….

I do also admire the reds and yellow of Mann’s “dispatches” cover but keep in mind that the “front lines” have always been chaotic and rife with disinformation. Can we get a little cartoonish Devil to stand on the yellow line and point at the blue oval?

Please go to Mc’s site and at 5:09 PM (just a few comments down) follow his link to the post of 2011/03/29 – It’s tricks all the way down. This is where the issue is discussed. The “cover” (and this flap about it) is important for the fact that it directs attention, especially for those not having read the CA and other posts, to the problems with some people’s science. And that’s not funny.
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My favorite trick on a cover is on Al Gore’s book with the reverse hurricane off the coast of Florida:

Ok, the situation has utterly forced me to write this. I don’t want to, mind you. But the salvation of humanity demands it.

What am I going to write about, you ask? Well, I’m going to write about: Fungal Toes and Climate Change.

You see, this was a dare from my sister. My older sister. In an earlier reincarnation she was a… Ok, I can’t go there. Suffice it to say, she was responsible for my arrested development. And let us leave it at that.

Anyway, as my niece once told me, “If you want the entire world to know about something, tell it to my mother, and tell her to keep it a secret.”

So, in that spirit, my older sister dared me. You see, she was at the foot doctor (I think they’re called proctologist’s but I’m not certain). And, it was for treatment for her fungal toe. And she said, “I dare you to tell the world about this.”

And I took her on. Finally. You see, a fungal toe is like Michael Mann and his research. Now, my sister has had her fungal toe for years now. And every time they try to correct it, well, it just comes back, and comes back, and comes back. Now, at this point it should be obvious that Michael Mann’s research has great similarity to a fungal toe. Every time someone tries to correct it, fix it, point out its errors, well, the same obnoxious, utterly pointless research comes back, and comes back, and come back. Just like a fungal toe, it provides no benefit at all, is thoroughly obnoxious, and might end up costing us all a lot of money. And, it’s contagious. And, did I say, it comes back, and comes back, and comes back.

Obviously this particular pedant didn’t look past the first three definitions… from Merriam Webster online dictionary we have: “d : the best or most extreme of its kind : utmost ” i know…quibble quibble…

Obviously this particular pedant did read past the first three definitions. From the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary we have: “d : the best or most extreme of its kind : utmost “. I know … quibble quibble

The statement (No researchers in this field have ever, to our knowledge, “grafted the thermometer record onto” any reconstruction) was written in 2004. The book cover is 2012. So this is not a case of Mann being caught in a fib. However, the 2004 comment is typical Mannian misdirection. Mann’s original hockey stick paper appended or attached the instrument record to his multi-proxy record (as his book cover does) so he’s playing with definitions when he says nobody “grafted” the thermometer record onto a reconstruction.

When Mann was being investigated for his involvement with the climate-gate emails he told the BBC that he was surprised that his hockey stick became an icon of the climate movement because the data and analysis underlying the graph were so uncertain. But just a few years later he has the audacity to write a book about how he was attacked for promoting his “uncertain” conclusions. The Mann has no shame.

An instrumental record shown alongside a reconstruction with nothing distinguished is merely a more accurate description of the physical reality of AGW. Pointing out such a conjunction identifies the reporter as an industry funded disinformation source.

Quoting Mann’s “disappointing to find this specious claim (which we usually find originating from industry-funded climate disinformation websites) appearing in this forum.”

It is somewhat incongruous to see this statement coming from one who is himself fully and generously funded by the authorities who pay for the results they want, whilst stating what is tantamount to being a blatant lie. WE know it is not true and if he doesn’t then he is surely an ignorant man. But then his clinging to the belief that his “hockey stick” is correct when just about everybody else knows it is not, says little for either his knowledge or his integrity.

For completeness I include the comment I made at ‘ClimateAudit’ about this book cover issue.

“Can I respectfully suggest that we should be getting back to basics.
Is it not true that the so-called spike or hockey stick blade was intended/claimed to represent the then-current global average surface temperature plus a projection of future increases, supposedly resulting directly from increasing atmospheric CO2 levels.

Is it not true that since then, two main factors have been accepted as scientifically valid to us skeptics – 1. declared temperature anomalies have been proven to be fudged, innacurate or both: 2. accurate or not, there is no significant, current correlation between CO2 trends and global temperature trends.

Therefore all this here debate is remote from the fact that Mann’s hockey stick graph is clearly wrong, as is his feeble attempt at denying the obvious.
All these words become so much rhetoric and do not meaningfully further the debate.
All our words and all his (Mann’s) words change nothing. The public and the governments are not listening anyway, while we get bogged down with a technicality that may give reason for us to be suspected of “protesteth(ing) too much”.”

Thanks to government grants of tax payer’s money Michael Mann is forever in a position to make these specious claims with impunity. I’m personally in favor of an investigation of Mann and others as relates their part in policy that has resulted in the death of thousands to cold around the world as a result of failed climate change policy. If it is true a quarter million Brits have died from exposure as a result of the policies wrought from the ravings of Mann and others then his head on a pike pole or what ever is the maximum penalty for incompetence leading to massive loss of life is not too much to ask – all according to law, of course. Society has a right and responsibility to protect itself from these madmen.

richardscourtney on April 8, 2013 at 12:22 am
‘Tom J:
Thankyou for your post at April 7, 2013
Thankyou.
Richard’

Well, thank you. As you may guess I can’t sleep tonight. I kept waking up from this ghastly nightmare about being beaten over the head with a hockey stick. Then I realized it wasn’t a dream. It was my sister. Wearing a Michael Mann Halloween mask. Hitting me over. And over. And…

John F. Hultquist says: April 7, 2013 at 6:36 pm
… My favorite trick on a cover is on Al Gore’s book with the reverse hurricane off the coast of Florida:

But nobody noticed the hurricane on the equator. Do equatorial hurricanes rotate clockwise or counterclockwise?
.

Gilbert K. Arnold says: April 7, 2013 at 7:32 pm
Mike McMillan says: …
Obviously this particular pedant didn’t look past the first three definitions… from Merriam Webster online dictionary we have: “d : the best or most extreme of its kind : utmost ” i know…quibble quibble…
greymouser70 says: April 7, 2013 at 7:37 pm
Mike McMillan says: …
Obviously this particular pedant did read past the first three definitions. From the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary we have: “d : the best or most extreme of its kind : utmost “. I know … quibble quibble

What are the odds of two replies coming up nearly identical, both using condensed high school dictionaries, and yet reaching opposite conclusions. Must be the ultimate festering of Muphrey’s Law. Amazing. That definition is down at #9 in my dictionary, btw.

Obviously the second line of my reply slipped by you two. Reading English at Oxford is a reference to the Romm-Delingpole Nuremberg post, which had comments turned off. I’ve been reading the Nuremberg transcripts and commentaries, and there are several very good reasons why neither side of the climate debate should suggest a modern rerun. But that’s for another day.

‘Sara’ posting on the relevant thread on CA has suggested that those who understand the issues and can express them succinctly should review Mann’s book on Amazon, and on the Facebook service ‘Goodreads’. As she remarks, this is where most people esp the young get their recommendations, regarding what is worth reading on any topic.

So far the reviews for this book by readers have supported Mann and the hockey stick thesis, as if no dissenting view had ever been expressed. It would be a very good idea if people like Shiphil with a grasp of the essentials and the ability to express them in simple terms were to offer countering views. This will reach a far wider audience than posting on climate blogs.

As an aside, since this is mostly a lighthearted thread, I asked a good friend who is a practicing astrologer (not the ‘sun signs’ nonsense type) of many years experience to look at Mann’s birth chart, so far as one can, absent a time of birth. She assures me you can tell a lot about character, without it.
She laughed at the result, and said: “This is a person very given to self-delusion. But you will never get anyone with this chart to change his mind – nor to stop speaking it. He’s trapped inside a triple Grand Cross…” (There was much more explication btw, in minute and utterly damning detail, and she had no idea whose chart it was; I could post her reading if anyone’s interested; I know most of you are not).
[Mod: feel free to delete this astro-para if you think it will bring the site into disrepute!]

I am always confused about why the proxy data does not match closely the thermometer records during the calibration period ? If you are calibrating then the the proxy data HAS to closely match the calibration data, the proxy data has no value without calibration …Yet we see the proxy data diverge clearly from the temperature data during calibration periods … my bet is that if they properly calibrated their proxies then the historical record would show way too much warmth for their taste …

Astounding. I can only presume that the word ‘honest’ or ‘honesty’ does not appear within job descriptions or requirements for University posts. So I guess university professors can say whatever they want, especially if they have tenure. No comeback is possible.